Diary of an Arcade Employee

Star Trek

Retroist Scoreboard fans, we’ve hit one of those lulls in releases that happens during the summer, but fear not, there’s some classic movie music on CD to get you through the end of summer vacation.

Intrada has reached into its back catalog to reissue a title that sold out quickly upon its original release in 2009 – Jerry Goldsmith‘s score from Ten Little Indians (1973). The contents are the same as the 2009 release, so this is just an instance of a label giving collectors who missed out on the first limited release a second chance.

If you’re looking for something a bit further afield, there are also swingin’ sixties superspy sounds aplenty on the live concert recording The Jazz From U.N.CL.E., performed by the Summit Six Sextet to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Man From U.N.CL.E. Music from the classic series is rearranged for a six-piece jazz group. This title is also available from Intrada.

Dragon’s Domain has put Tangerine Dream‘s score from 1989’s Miracle Mile back in print for the first time in nearly 30 years, now as a 2-CD set: the first CD presents the complete score for the first time ever, as well as some isolated “music effects”, while the second CD duplicates (and remasters) the original 1989 album.

BSX Records is releasing, on CD, an album that was previously a digital-only release, Music From The Star Trek Saga. The album consists of new re-recordings of music spanning the entire history of the franchise, from classic TV Trek through the ’80s and ’90s spinoffs, and up to the first of the new movies.

Varese Sarabande is taking pre-orders for a late-September deluxe expanded release of the music from the cult classic 1980 live-action Popeye movie starring Robin Williams. Though scored (and featuring songs) by Harry Nilsson, Popeye was originally set to be scored by composer Thomas Pierson, and his never-before-heard rejected score will be heard on this release for the first time, along with two Nilsson-composed songs written for, but not used in, the film.

Is that all? No, that is not all – both Intrada and La-La Land Records are having end-of-summer blowout sales, with Intrada knocking 25% off the price of such titles as 48 Hrs., Cocoon, Edward Scissorhands, Red Dawn, Silent Running, SpaceCamp, and Jason And The Argonauts. La-La Land is offering discounts on the soundtracks from the first three seasons of the 21st century Battlestar Galactica series (which are about to be out-of-print), as well as markdowns on such titles as The Shawshank Redemption, Krull, and Creepshow. With many of these titles officially in low quantities, these sales are excellent chances for you to get those classic soundtracks you’ve been holding out on.

Happy listening, soundtrack fans – the Retroist Scoreboard will be back in a couple of weeks with a whole new batch of releases.

I Came For One Movie Parody…Honest!

Movie parodies (like music videos) made for fertile ground on In Living Color. I covered this in two previous posts (see related), but there is so much more to see. Besides, the truth is, I forgot some of these existed.

So I guess that makes them more worthy of mention!

Anyway, keep reading – you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Sitcom Flight Passengers, and Basic Instincts Gone Awry…

Uploaded by myworldisgettingdumber

First of all, two parodies for the price of one!

Perhaps I should just ask the important question: what happens when Sondra from 227 works airline security on a plane overrun with terrorists? Passenger 227, that’s what! In this parody, Sondra takes on the Wesley Snipes role AND the terrorists. She also insists to Mary (via phone) that she didn’t teach Mary’s daughter how to “do that thing with her tongue.”

(By the way, this is the parody I planned to write about!)

Meanwhile, in the second movie parody (same video), Basic Instinct gets the “Wanda The Ugly Girl” treatment. But instead of Michael Douglas, we have Tommy Davidson. And filling in for Sharon Stone…Ali Wentworth. But, filling in for her? Jamie Foxx as Wanda. Of course, if you’ve seen Wanda before, you know where this is going!

I still can’t believe she’s married to George Stephanopolous.

A Fatal Attraction…to Coffee?!

Uploader: oilerfanatic1

This parody crosses product placement with movie. In this case, coffee with Fatal Attraction. Faux Glenn Close is visited by a neighbor needing coffee for his party. Of course, she feels that instant spark, that connection that sharing a cup of coffee with a total stranger brings about. And because she is a bit unhinged, she can’t handle it when he doesn’t feel the same.

It was one moment, a chance encounter, and you’ve seen Fatal Attraction, so you know where this leads.

Mookie Does The Right Thing

Uploader: 24fpsfan

We’re back in Brooklyn, where Sha-day is Sadie, Joie is Joy, and copies of School Daze are plentiful. Spike Lee owns “Spike’s Joint,” where he offers advice, offers up free copies of his movie, and fends off Damon Wayans.

Look for the Rosie Perez (the Fly Girls choreographer) in a cameo.

Star Trek

The Enterprise crew had not one, but two, adventures in the In Living Color movie parody world!

First up, that time Louis Farra-khan boarded the Enterprise…

Uploader: bebox20088

“Who…is…this?!”

Secondly, the journey that happened long past retirement…

Uploader: trichotomic

So, it was a retirement home escape act after all?

Why wasn’t this movie actually made?!

There’s No Silencing These Lambs!

Uploader: myworldisgettingdumber

Clarice is back, and she’s hunting “The Gibberish Killer.” Her only hope? Oswald Bates, whose rather interesting grasp on the English language is both fascinating and terrifying.

Movie Parodies We’d Like To See!

I’m probably scratching the surface (especially since I’ve discussed this two other times), but if there was one thing this show knew how to do, it was add their established characters into their parodies of movies.

Wouldn’t you love to see one of these movies?

Related (More “In Living Color” Movie Parodies!)

Closing out this crazy train of Hollywood knock-offs, some of my previous In Living Color-style movie parody writings!

For those of you that are stout enough to survive the harshness of the elements and go camping. Why not put a retro spin to your tent of choice? In fact make it a Star Trek Shuttlecraft tent!

Now I will certainly be the first to admit that my Star Trek knowledge isn’t all-encompassing. While I am more familiar with the original Star Trek series. I did however retain some info thanks to those long and lonely nights of my youth. For example the Star Trek Shuttlecraft tent appears to be based on the Mark 6 version. Which was also a modified version of the updated Galileo shuttles.

Moreover you can see that very type of shuttlecraft in action in 1989’s The Final Frontier!

In addition, here is a fun fact. I actually am one of the outcasts that really likes The Final Frontier. Now of course that you’ve learned I obviously have no taste in film. I think it best to get to the point of this article, the Star Trek Shuttlecraft tent.

Images courtesy of David Delisle.

The sad news is you cannot purchase this. It is in fact the brainchild of Dave Delisle. From his site he shares that originally this design was intended for a bunk bed. When you get a moment go vist his Geeky Ideas website. Which besides the tent also presents all manner of creative inventions. Case in point this Stanley Cup playoff bracket, inspired of course by 1984’s The Karate Kid.

Image courtesy of David Delisle.

Furthermore, David’s Star Trek Shuttlecraft Tent could be rolled up and carried in it’s thrusters!

Image courtesy of David Delisle.

So while you crafty do-it-yourselfer’s figure out how to make this a reality. I offer you up this YouTube video from TrekWorks featuring the restoration of the original Galileo shuttle.

A quick update, just in case you were in cryogenic suspension: last year (2016) was the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. You might just have missed the massive conventions featuring top-line guests who had never done the Star Trek convention circuit before. You might just have missed the glut of cool merchandise, mammoth Blu-Ray releases, and the latest movie in the franchise.

You might also have missed some stamps. The U.S. Postal Service graced the anniversary with a set of stamps that seemed to be trying to pay homage to the colorful ‘60s origins of Star Trek rather than to its beloved characters. They were…abstract…to say the least. Now Canada’s stamps? Canada had the best Star Trek postage stamps – basically, they had the stamps I wished we had gotten in the States.

If you’re wondering about the unusual spread of characters covered on the sheet of five Canadian Star Trek postage stamps from 2016, bear in mind that three of the five actors – William Shatner, James Doohan, and John Colicos – were born in Canada! Non-Canadian-born Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley were included because, well, there would’ve been riots in the streets if Spock and Bones had been left off of the 50th anniversary stamp set.

Canada Post apparently knows when it’s got a very happy customer base, because it has just announced “Star Trek: Year 2” stamp sets, this time concentrating on the five TV captains that the franchise has put on our screens so far: Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and Archer. (Sorry, no Chris Pine, modern Trek movie fans.)

The new set of stamps is being offered in every form from a lavish booklet, to first-day covers, to framed sheets.

The best part of all? Canada Post does ship to the United States, quite happily.

As we’re all waiting for a new Star Trek series (to be filmed, incidentally, in Canada) that seems like it might fade into vaporware in an alien atmosphere, Canada Post is keeping fans happy by not limiting the celebration to 2016. (And the 2016 stamp sets are still available.)

Soundtrack fans, we’re in yet another unexpectedly meaty week of wonders, so let’s waste no time in diving right in.

La-La Land Records, as previously announced, is now taking orders for their limited edition (1500 copies) double LP vinyl pressing of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, returning Jerry Goldsmith’s magnum opus to turntables for the first time in nearly 40 years, this time with the complete score spread across four sides. (The CD box set has even more music, if you’re after music instead of a display piece: Goldsmith scored half the movie before coming up with the iconic Enterprise theme, which was later repurposed as the theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the CD edition presents the complete score as heard in the movie plus what basically amounts to an unused alternate soundtrack.)

While the first Star Trek movie is returning to vinyl, another classic movie is, incredibly, only just now making its way to CD thanks to Varese Sarabande, which is presenting Dave Grusin’s music from On Golden Pond, interspersed with dialogue from the movie (in some cases, quite lengthy chunks of dialogue).

Varese also has a trio of limited editions now available: an “encore” re-pressing of Elmer Bernstein’s score from Disney’s The Black Cauldron, limited to just 1000 copies for those who missed out on the last limited edition issue of this title.

For fans of high-octane action movies (and their music), there’s a new edition of Basil Poledouris’ music from the Steven Segal flick Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, more than doubling the running time of the original 1995 CD release. Even the movie’s source music is included as bonus tracks. What’s source music? Ask me that again in a minute.

And finally, John Williams’ score from the 1990’s Stanley & Iris gets a limited edition CD release of 3,000 copies, but that’s not all: tucked into the open space left by that movie’s score is a second Williams score hitting CD for the first time, 1972’s Pete ‘n’ Tillie. The two movies’ music are a good fit to share a CD: both are heartfelt relationship movies, and hey, it’s John Williams.

So…about source music: it’s a wonderful thing when original source music winds up as a bonus track on a CD…of course, that’s assuming that the director isn’t married to his temp track. Confused yet? That’s why we have another slice of the Retroist Scoreboard Glossary this week.

The Retroist Scoreboard Glossary: How The Sausage Gets MadeAdditional Music – you’ll see this in movie and especially TV credits these days…often in small print. Particularly with the breakneck production timetable of television, but also with movies, composers must hire extra help to ghost-write the sheer amount of music needed within that timetable. Some of today’s biggest names were yesterday’s up-and-coming “additional music” composers: the ubiquitous Bear McCreary (10 Cloverfield Lane, The Walking Dead, Agents Of SHIELD, Outlander, Black Sails, Da Vinci’s Demons) got his break composing “additional music” for the 2003 Battlestar Galactica miniseries, whose primary composer moved on, leaving McCreary to take over the hourly series, making his career in the process. Due to the structure of CD release contracts with the primary composer, this additional music may or may not appear on an official release, leaving music from memorable scenes off the table. (Thus was the fate of the pivotal, Joel Goldsmith-composed “Flight Of The Phoenix” scene from Star Trek: First Contact, which was left off of the original 1996 soundtrack release at the label’s demand, simply because it wasn’t by primary composer Jerry Goldsmith.) In a few cases, the assistant composers may release their material as a composer promo.

Music+FX Track or Stem – a special mix of a movie or TV show’s music score and sound effects, prepared so that local voice artists in various parts of the world can do a language dub without the original actors’ voices in the background. Particularly with older films, this may be the closest we come to having a film’s original music tapes; it’s exceedingly rare to see a CD release of a Music+FX mix, but not unheard of (i.e. La-La Land’s “archival” release of Jerry Goldsmith’s rare score from The Satan Bug). Music+FX mixes are more often the domain of bootleggers.

Source Music – composers may be called upon to create “source music” for a scene in which a movie’s characters can hear that song in question from some on-screen source – a radio, a jukebox, a band on stage, to name a few examples. (Contrast this against the movie’s score, which the characters do not hear.) Some reissue producers go out of their way to include specially composed source music, particularly if it’s been the subject of “what was that song…?” debates for years and years. In some cases, source music is a piece of music from a movie’s songtrack.

Spotting – a process during pre-production of a movie or TV show in which the composer sits in on a screening of a rough edit to discuss the timing, placement and emotional thrust of the music with the director and/or editor(s), sometimes using temp tracks as a guide. (These meetings are called spotting sessions.) Once spotting is complete, the process of composing actually begins, though some composers may discover at a very late stage that the director’s ideas on spotting has changed, and their music has been tracked over a completely different scene…or has been replaced with a piece of the temp track.

Temp Track – a “temporary track” is often assembled, during a movie’s editing process, by the director and/or the film editor to track scenes in a movie that has no score yet. Temp tracks are often cobbled together from classical pieces or other movie soundtracks, and a composer hired to score a movie will often be asked to compose music with a similar feel…without actually duplicating it note-for-note, of course. The history of film music is rife with instances of directors falling in love with their temp tracks to the point that they either don’t hire a composer, or reject a specially commissioned score when it doesn’t live up to the director’s expectations (perhaps the most famous specimen of this category being Alex North’s unused original score for 2001: a space odyssey). Temp tracks are controversial in film music, whether for the perception that they limit a composer’s creativity, or for the not-limited-to-Kubrick phenomenon which plagues composers to this day (just this year, Johann Johannson’s score for Arrival was disqualified from Oscar contention because of the prominence of Max Richter’s composition, “On The Nature Of Daylight”, in key scenes of the movie – a holdover from the temp track that the director felt couldn’t be improved upon, costing his composer a nomination).

Tracking – once a composer has turned in a completed score, that music is at the mercy of the film’s director and/or editor(s), and may not appear where it was originally spotted. The music may be chopped up, edited and tracked in a different place entirely, such as >em>Star Wars Episode IStar Wars Episode III. Additionally, licensed or specially commissioned songs may be tracked into scenes, replacing sections of more traditional scoring (Ray Parker Jr.’s memorable song was tracked into as many scenes of Ghostbusters as possible late in editing, leaving significant portions of Elmer Bernstein’s score on the cutting room floor).